Heritage vessels exploring the bustling Waitemata

Voyager has a working fleet of three heritage vessels that form an active and integral part of our collection. In fact, we are the only maritime museum in the world that offers such an experience.

Visitors can see and learn about the vessels when they visit Voyager, and on days when we have scheduled public sailings, visitors can enjoy the thrilling experience of sailing the Waitemata Harbour in a heritage vessel.

Built by museum staff and volunteers in the traditional manner, she was launched in August 1993. Freightways Ltd sponsored her construction with assistance by many other firms.

Ted Ashby is built of blackbutt, an Australian hardwood grown in Northland, instead of the traditional kauri. She is fastened with galvanised steel bolts and spikes. The hull is framed with fore-and-aft bulkheads, known as partitions, and the bottom is cross-planked. Underwater the hull is sheathed in worm-resistant totara over tarred felt and schenam, a mixture of lime and oil.

Scows were flat-bottomed, centreboard vessels, most of which carried their cargo on deck. They were ideal for working estuaries and shallow harbours, and they carried logs, firewood, sand and shingle, machinery and stock. A few of the larger scows carried timber to Australia and America.

Scows ranged from 45 to 130 foot in length and most were two-masted, ketch or schooner rigged. The largest were three-masted. Some 130 scows were built in the north of New Zealand between 1873 and 1925. The first was the Lake Erie, based on the American Great Lakes scows. New Zealand scows quickly developed their own characteristic form and construction. Today only half a dozen survived.

Voyager chose to name the vessel after Ted Ashby, a man whose whole life was intimately involved with the scows, and the author of the book 'Phantom Fleet'.

Launched in 1981, designer and builder Ralph Sewell intended to recreate a replica coastal trader built in the traditions of 19th century shipwrighting techniques, materials and construction faithful to her type and to that time. In time-honoured fashion, she is built of one diagonal and one fore and aft skin of kauri on sawn kauri stringers. The deck is two skins, one of kauri, one of totara. She is copper fastened and stiffened with carefully selected pohutukawa knees and sawn kauri floors. For modern conditions she is fitted with an auxiliary engine, and the main hold is fitted out as a cabin. Measuring 60 feet with a maximum beam of sixteen foot six and a draft of water of six foot she is neither a large or small boat.

Her powerful brigantine rig spreads up to 11 sails, seen at her best when she won the 1991 Tall Ships Race. Before coming to Voyager, Breeze was involved in sail training with the Breeze Sailing Club. In 1985 she sailed to Mururoa to protest French nuclear testing taking the place of Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior which had been sunk by French agents in Auckland.

Breeze is the jewel in the crown of the Voyager’s waterborne fleet. She is lovingly maintained and sailed by museum volunteers. She undertakes annual journeys to the Bay of Islands and the Mahurangi Regatta, and her heritage features have been required for filming a number of historical television shows.

In 1977 she was salvaged from the Tamaki river and had a steam engine and boiler installed. She worked for several years on the Waihou and Ohinemuri rivers from Paeroa and on the Mahurangi from Warkworth. In 1988 she carried passengers across the Brisbane river for the six months of the Brisbane World Expo. Puke was built of kauri and planked in two skins, the inner diagonal and the outer fore-&-aft. The plumb stem and counter stern and large propeller are typical of launches of the period.

In 1993 a major rebuild was carried out by the Boat Yard at Hobson Wharf. She was purchased by the Union Steam Ship Company in 1989 and then donated to Voyager.

Puke can be seen steaming around the Viaduct Harbour on regular weekend trips as part of the museum’s heritage fleet. She is available for charter for special occasions and has attended many wedding parties as a memorable alternative to modern transport.